Rhode Island has a hard-drive-sniffing dog to combat child porn

You might have thought that police dogs are only good for sniffing out drugs at the airport or in the field, but as it turns out, their noses are also suited to track down the location of gadgets.

The Rhode Island state police in the United States have recently been showing off a dog trained to do just that: sniff out hard disks and flash drives that might contain illegal child pornography.

Thoreau, a golden Labrador trained to identify the scents of the components in storage devices, is sent to the houses of suspected criminals to locate hidden drives. He is so good at sniffing out the components that he can hone in on the location of drives down to the exact drawer they're hiding in, even if they're in zip-locked bags.

Out on an assignment last month, Thoreau has already found his first flash drive after a lengthy period of training. In return, he gets tasty food that forms his meals every day.

Dogs are also capable of sniffing out polycarbonate optical discs to detect the locations of pirated DVD farms. The MPAA has used special sniffer dogs for such tasks in the past, but as online piracy is now by far the most widespread form of piracy, disc-sniffing dogs aren't being used as frequently.